U.S. minorities are faring better in suburbs that matured after the civil rights era

The trend of mass suburbanization that followed World War II led to increasing segregation and inequality for minorities. But has this pattern continued in suburbs built since the 1960s? In new research, Deirdre Pfeiffer compares neighborhood characteristics in the over 1,500 post-civil rights suburbs in the U.S. with those in central cities and older suburbs. She finds that African Americans living in newer suburbs experience lower rates of neighborhood poverty and have rates of neighborhood homeownership and college education closer to those of whites than their counterparts in the city centre and older suburbs. She argues that her findings show the importance of large-scale housing growth in the U.S. as opposed to infill development which may strengthen existing patterns of segregation and inequality.